Monday, December 28, 2015

In the Old Testament, Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven, with angels walking up and down it. God spoke to Jacob in the dream, promising him the land on which he slept, for him and his descendants.

Jacob's Ladder is also one of the configurations which can be made with Cat's Cradle, a string game.

What, and who, really were angels? Are they still around? In what shape, size, hue?

Priests at temples, threatening, brokering connectivity with God for a price, politicians dabbling or deeply entrenched into manipulative politicking, hoarders of wealth ill-begotten by mal-corrupt-practices, all nooks and corners of pathways and roads, protecting and shielding criminals--

-- or have they fled, like God himself, in chaotic incomprehension of his creation, not being able to feel safe in the midst of burgeoning, criminally inventive mankind....

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Friday, December 25, 2015

Ruffled. Discontent, unrest, inequity, sinister intemperate activism... ... Among people around the world, but mostly among the largest of human populations, among the deprived ones who cannot comprehend or cope with pressures of shortages, unaffordable costs, unmitigated and instant recourse to violence, deprivation of basics like rudimentary food, water, timely medication,signs of relief from being engulfed by unexpected forces of inclement weather, political and socio- economic uncertainties... ... Being ruffled to the extreme...----------------Bhashwati wrote:

Looks like you took this picture late at night. Whenever you took it, it is very startling.So many lines and curves and waves.i can sense them on my finger tips.The text for feathers connects with the image in a very unexpected manner and i heart that. i also heart that the words came not as a flowing account but in short broken clauses, disrupted and disjointed much like lives faced with devastation.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

The subject of the child bride must be part of almost all human cultures, manifesting itself in different forms, like, at best, marriage; at worst kidnapping, molestation, rape, purchase, prostitution, enslavement, etc.

In India, while myriads of writers have dealt with the subject, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhya, arguably one of the best writers of prose of whom India, and particularly Bengal, are proud, wrote most movingly on the subject, to emancipate the girl child as well as women.

There have been countless books on the subject. The ones that have been filmed in India have, among them, one which recurs again and again because of its name, Balika Bodhu (English: Child Bride), written by Bimal Kar, who received the Sahitya Akademi award, India's highest award for literature, in 1975.

In reality, the premium on virginity or on very young females continues to fascinate the so-called virility and sexual dominance of men throughout the world, whether through marriage or without it.

Indeed, human sexuality, at best, is the most unfair among all living creatures. At worst, it is 'inhuman'. Apart from Men being the main benefactors, in a lighter vein, the second biggest beneficiary is the profession of psychiatry.

My picture is a contrast to what I have written about, because of the tranquility and joy of anticipation in the eyes of the subject.

Summary: Representatives of 195 nations reached an agreement that will commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.

Traditionally, such pacts have required developed economies like the United States to take action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but they have exempted developing countries like China and India from such obligations.

The accord, which United Nations diplomats have been working toward for nine years, changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor.

The new deal will not, on its own, solve global warming. At best, scientists who have analyzed it say, it will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by about half enough as is necessary to stave off an increase in atmospheric temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the point at which, scientific studies have concluded, the world will be locked into a future of devastating consequences, including rising sea levels, severe droughts and flooding, widespread food and water shortages and more destructive storms... (Link)

As far as I know, this is the first time that a phrase like "devastating consequences" has been so strongly phrased and emphasized. However, my take, from the year 1966-67, has been unchanged. The very nature as part of the DNA of Homo Sapiens is unceasingly inventive and therefore incapable of drawing a line in his quest constantly to alter, and in the process to defy the very laws which govern to protect our planet Earth. He cannot stop this compulsion which sacrifices everything in nature's order, and continues to increase in number, and what he considers levels of comfort by defying and changing these laws. Among all the harm this unstoppable tendency brings, the most important is the fact that the population continues to grow. That is where the problem is: the more his numbers grow, the more he consumes, and this consumption deprades the unrenewable ecological balance, which supports all life, but most importantly, his.

And this is not addressed or perhaps not addressable. And hence, perdition. The only question is, how soon the doom.

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Friday, December 04, 2015

More than at other times, during rains I get all worked up and ecstatic with Tagore's poetry, on a subject which seemed especially to inspire him: about, on, full of, rain, rain.Today Nancy Gandhi has again stirred me with her two pictures of our balcony. But alas, I am not Tagore.The above is with abject apologies to the people who are suffering all around Madras and the extended environment of the Southern peninsula of India. The only comfort or hopelessness which prevents me from breaking down altogether is that we who are affected by the current crisis are not the only people or place; that the whole world is by turn going to be bulldozed into submission and gradual perdition by man's belief that he controls not only the earth, but possibly the cosmos. He holds periodic meetings and conferences in the most affluent and luxurious venues to assert that man will overcome the so-called 'climate change.'Ha.See my earlier blogpost on climate change: